Motor coaches visit Hornsey depot

Wednesday 16 June 2010

Above: Two motor-coaches from our fleet
accelerate up the hill at Barden Park Road, Tonbridge, on the outward
portion of the day’s journey. Photo taken at 09:25 by Colin
Price.

Motor coaches 60116+60118 travelled from
St. Leonards to Hornsey Depot (via Bromley South and the North London
Line) on Wednesday 16 June.

The purpose of this trip was to remove a fairly bad wheel-flat on one
of 60116Mountfield’s wheelsets, this process requiring
the use of a wheel-lathe.

As is noted on one of the videos below, the train does sound as if it
has some wheel-flats on the return journey. This is because,
with the time and resources available, the plan was only to use the
under-floor wheel-lathe to “turn down” the worst-affected
wheelset: 6mm was removed from its tyres, fully erasing the flatted
portion. Some of the other wheelsets on these vehicles do have some
minor flats, and this is what was heard as the train returned.

Videos

Some video-footage of the 2-car train’s journey around the
London area (though not of the wheel-lathe!) has appeared on YouTube,
including the following: